Obama asks for new power to merge agencies
By: Donovan Slack and Byron Tau
January 13, 2012 10:32 AM EST

President Barack Obama stepped firmly onto Republican turf Friday, announcing that he wants to merge a half-dozen agencies to cut spending and streamline the federal government.

Obama’s plan would merge the Commerce Department, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade representative and other independent business agencies into a new, unnamed Cabinet agency.

The president would need congressional approval to consolidate the agencies, and he virtually dared Republicans to vote against it, putting the GOP on the defensive for the second time in a month. The payroll tax cut fight forced Republicans lawmakers to choose whether to support the president or a tax increase. This would force them to support the president or the status quo — a tangled web of regulatory agencies that Republicans have held up as a barrier to job creation.

“This is an area that should receive bipartisan support because making our government more responsive and strategic and leaner shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” Obama said as he announced the initiative at the White House. “We can do this better. We can provide taxpayers better value.”

White House officials estimated the consolidation would save $3 billion during the next 10 years and eliminate 1,000 to 2,000 jobs through attrition — as employees leave, they would not be replaced. The savings represent a tiny fraction of the overall federal budget of nearly $4 trillion annually.

The plan, aside from potentially checkmating the GOP in Congress, positions the president as business-friendly in an election year when the economy is a central factor. His potential opponents have made “job creators” buzzwords de rigueur, and some have even made similar proposals. Texas Gov. Rick Perry famously couldn’t remember the names of all three departments he wanted to eliminate, but the first one he mentioned was Commerce.

Reaction from Republicans in Congress was swift but measured, dinging the president for previous big spending and for failing to act sooner, but pledging to give Obama’s plan careful consideration.

“[A]fter presiding over one of the largest expansions of government in history, and a year after raising the issue in his last State of the the Union, it’s interesting to see the president finally acknowledge that Washington is out of control,” said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

House Speaker John Boehner’s office also expressed skepticism about whether the president’s plans are actually what they seem.

“We hope the president isn’t simply proposing new packaging for the same burdensome approach,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said. “However, eliminating duplicative programs and making the federal government more simple, streamlined, and business-friendly is always an idea worth exploring. We look forward to hearing more about his proposal.”

Under the plan, the president would request fast-track consolidation authority that would allow him to propose agency mergers. Those would be subject to an up-or-down vote from Congress within 90 days. Lawmakers would need to grant the president the fast-track authority and approve each of his requests for consolidation.

During his remarks, the president said that previous presidents — Republican and Democrat — had such authority to reshape the executive branch.

“For the past 52 years, presidents were able to streamline or consolidate the executive branch by submitting a proposal to Congress that was guaranteed a simple up or down vote,” Obama said. “But in 1984, while Ronald Reagan was president, Congress stopped granting that authority.”

Despite the focus on reducing the size of government, it’s unclear whether Capitol Hill will cooperate. Republicans, who control the House and can block votes in the Senate, are fuming about four recess appointments last week, including Richard Cordray to head the nation’s new consumer watchdog agency, and reeling from the December battle over the payroll tax cut extension.

Rep. Darrell Issa, another frequent critic of Obama’s, said he stands “ready to work with President Obama” on the consolidation proposal. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which oversees governmental reorganization, added: “While I have been disappointed that the White House has not embraced earlier bipartisan congressional efforts seeking collaborative engagement on proposals to reorganize government, I hope this announcement represents the beginning of a sincere and dedicated effort to enact meaningful reforms.”

Democrats, meanwhile, hailed Obama’s plan, saying it would make government more efficient and effective.

“The president’s proposal reflects the concerns House Democrats have heard from the thousands of small business entrepreneurs we have met with in the last few months,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement, adding that she hopes “Congress acts without delay … in a bipartisan way.”

Before Obama spoke, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters, “We want this to happen as soon as possible.”

The streamlining effort is part of a broader rethinking of government functions that Obama announced last year in his State of the Union address. It gives the president a ready-made response against GOP critics who say he wants to expand the reach of government beyond its traditional role.

“The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they’re in salt water. And I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked,” the president said last January.

Jeff Zients, deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters that Obama will decide later, after he gets authority to act, whether Commerce Secretary John Bryson will head the new agency.

Bryson endorsed the move in a Friday afternoon blog post for the Commerce Department, despite the uncertainty of his own fate.

“As a former CEO, I fully support this approach and know the considerable merits to having all of the economic functions in one department,” wrote Bryson, who previously ran the utility company Edison International. “This move would be of enormous benefit to U.S. businesses of all sizes. We will have more resources and less red tape. There will be fewer hurdles in our way to provide faster services and answers to businesses.”

In addition to the commerce and business portfolio changes and the creation of a new Cabinet-level department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would move into the Interior Department.